everything you wanted to find
by irnan
Summary: It was the familiarity of it that wrecked her: the fact that she knew the rituals and the ceremonies, was used to dresses like that, knew how to walk and smile and do her hair, as if the intervening years had never happened.


_this is a disclaimer._

_**AN:** part of the swallows and amazons verse, shortly after "a peak in Darien", I think._

**everything you wanted to find**

It was maybe two weeks before the wedding that Mara showed up on Leia's doorstep. Quiet, rainy afternoon; Han was working on the Falcon and the kids were either with him or wreaking havoc elsewhere.

Leia took one look at her friend and reached for the Whyren's.

"It was the shoes," Mara said.

"The shoes?"

"The shoes."

"Go on."

Mara opened her mouth to explain, found she couldn't, shut it again and then took a drink. Leia waited her out, although she was burning for answers on the inside.

"You know I grew up in the Imperial Palace," Mara said at last. "You know. Court protocol, dresses and dancing lessons and high heels and all of that –"

Leia couldn't help it: she burst out laughing. Mara pulled back, angry, about to get to her feet and leave, but Leia put her glass down and reached over the coffee table to grasp her wrists.

"And just now you unpacked those shoes and you looked at them and suddenly you realised you'd forgotten how to walk in heels," Leia said, voice brimming with mirth.

Mara looked delighted. "You too?" And when Leia nodded, "Oh, thank the _Force_!"

They laughed at each other for a good few minutes until Mara sobered up.

"I don't know if I like it," she said. "It feels like a skill set I've lost."

Leia arched an eyebrow. "A weapon you've forgotten how to operate?"

Mara shrugged, defiant. Leia wasn't wrong. She had never quite lost the habit of thinking of her abilities in that impersonal way: tools, commodities almost.

Leia shrugged, too. "I don't quite know what to say – it was different for me."

Mara poured them both another shot of whiskey. "Tell me?"

It wasn't all that long ago, Leia thought, that that would have been closer to an order than a question. She drew her legs up and tucked her feet underneath herself, slumping thoughtfully against the arm of her chair.

"Well. You know I took part in the Battle of Endor."

Mara nodded, slightly perplexed.

"I shouldn't have."

Both her friend's eyebrows shot up. Leia hastened to explain.

"I mean, from a rational point of view. I shouldn't have. I was a politician, not a warrior. When Dad let me join the Alliance, it wasn't as a frontline soldier, it was as a – an organiser, I suppose. A speechmaker."

"A rabble-rouser," Mara said, mouth curving.

Leia nodded. "Right. And then, after – after Alderaan was destroyed –"

She paused for a moment, took a drink. A shadow of old, old grief lay across her face for an instant, quickly fading again under that mask of hers. "I was a rallying point and a symbol of the atrocities and the misrule of the Empire."

"What happened?"

"Luke," his sister said dryly, and Mara laughed out loud. "Ah, not just. But. Suddenly I found that that – wasn't enough. I could do more, and I could do it more... immediately. I could take a direct hand in things that in past years I would have organised, and then trusted the execution to someone else. But then, when we were building the Republic, I found I didn't trust anyone else to do the organising."

Mara smiled. "But you missed it. The executing."

Leia nodded. "The execution is the essential part," she said. "Basic structures are important, but after that it's all up to the people on the ground. And I wanted to be on the ground! I was _good_ at being on the ground."

"You told me once you felt you had promises, responsibilities towards your fa- towards your Dad," Mara said.

"Right. That's where we're different."

"It certainly is!"

They exchanged a smile. Mara rolled her shoulders and sighed. "I don't know, Leia – maybe I'm afraid I'm moving back towards her. The Emperor's Hand. I've been running around the galaxy smuggling things for so long that anything else is – anything else makes me feel like I'm becoming her again."

Leia pursed her lips. "Only if you let yourself."

Mara barked a laugh. "Easier said than done."

"You know, I'm beginning to think the only thing you don't have yet is trust in yourself."

Mara was so shocked she almost dropped her glass. For a moment she glared at Leia's unruffled, expectant face, completely speechless. Then she threw the last of her whiskey back, put the empty glass on the coffee table, sunk her head into her hands and started to laugh, low, almost silent, fierce and angry. "This kind of - when it all comes back like this - I'm not sure I know how," she said in a muffled voice.

Leia debated for a moment whether to put her arms around her or not, and decided to just go for it. Mara clung to her for maybe ten seconds, nails digging sharply into the other woman's forearms, and then sat up and moved back, brushing her hair out of her face and shaking her head at herself.

"I'm sorry. Talk about – here I'm getting married in two weeks and I'm acting like more of a whiny teenager than Jaina probably ever will."

"Jaina doesn't whine," Leia said dryly. "She gets angry."

Mara snorted. "Good strategy."

"Not when you're a Skywalker."

"Point."

"Feeling better?"

"Some."

"Another drink?"

Mara met her eyes and smiled. "I think so, yeah."


End file.
